Should be possible to return {data: null} from resolvers without getting an error

[nikolasburk]

What feature are you missing?

In a resolver function, it should be possible to return {data: null} without having to also provide an error.

How could this feature look like in detail? Tradeoffs?

Considering the equivalent for the standard user query that returns the logged in user or null. If you want to build that for a custom auth type using a resolver, you would set up the schema extension e.g. like this:

type AuthenticatedEmailUserPayload {
  id: String!
  email: String!
}

extend type Query {
  authenticatedEmailUser: AuthenticatedEmailUserPayload
}

authenticatedEmailUser is optional, so it should be allowed to just return null:

module.exports = function authenticatedEmailUser(event) {

  if (!event.context.auth || !event.context.auth.nodeId) {
    return { data: null }
  }

  ...
}

However, with this implementation the server also returns an error for non-logged-in users:

{
  "data": {
    "authenticatedEmailUser": null
  },
  "errors": [
    {
      "locations": [
        {
          "line": 2,
          "column": 3
        }
      ],
      "path": [
        "authenticatedEmailUser"
      ],
      "code": 5006,
      "message": "The return value should include a 'data' field of type object",
      "requestId": "eu-west-1:simple:cj7k7742xq5ha0118jq8vigrf"
    }
  ]
}

[do4gr]

As part of the rework of the resolver function return types it is now possible to return {data: null} for resolver payload types that are optional ( PayloadType and [PayloadType!]). Returning just an empty response {} will also soon be possible.